Logistics Management 23

The Fleurus case The otherwise so peaceful Fleurus, an inconspicuous provincial town near Charleroi, recently found itself in a media storm when it emerged that the defunct company Best Medical Belgium was not taking the regulations regarding the storage of radioactive materials very seriously. Dozens of bags of life-threatening nuclear waste were dumped in a storage facility of the company, and were only discovered after two months by inspectors from the Federal Agency for Nuclear Control (FANC). The clean-up of the site will take about 6 to 7 years, and all parties are still in the dark about the possible health risks for the residents. The Fleurus case raises questions about the way in which some service providers deal with safety, but also about the effectiveness of the checks carried out by the competent authorities. The nuclear sector should in principle be the most strictly controlled, although in practice there seems to be a lot of room for improvement… Fortunately, our sector – with a few painful exceptions – is very concerned with safety. This is once again evident from the research conducted by easyFairs on the occasion of the PROLOGISTICS trade fair, the official catalogue of which can be found in this magazine. No less than 36.9% of respondents indicate that safety in the workplace is at the top of the agenda. Best Medical Belgium could learn a thing or two from this.